4 The end of history? Archaeology and the politics of identity in a globalized world B JØRNAR J. OLSEN Notions such as globalization and cultural hybridity have become the buzzwords of much current debate in the social and human sciences. Their prominent position reflects the significant transformations that occurred in the global–local interface in the late twentieth century. Cultural and national borders have become increasingly blurred as jet transport, satellite communication and electronic information tech- nology have ‘shrunk’ the world. Flows of people, information, cultures, commodi- ties and capital bring about a more immediate and direct articulation of local and global spaces, and a disruption of place as a self-evident reference for cultural dis- tinctiveness and belonging (Giddens 1990; Bhabha 1994; Eriksen 1994; Morley and Robins 1995; Waters 1995). Simultaneously, and linked with these processes, we witness how the firm foun- dations of modernity are being challenged by the ‘ambiguity, uncertainty and depthlessness’ of post-modernism. It has become fashionable to associate this chal- lenge with the end of certain taken-for-granted fundamentals: the end of grand narratives, the nation-state, authenticity and even of history itself (Fukuyama 1992). The enlightened visions of Kant, Hegel and Marx, of a universal reason and purpose in history (the realization of human freedom), the achievement of which was the goal towards which progress ran, have lost their credibility. The new uncer- tainty, ambiguity and inconsistency mark the end of modern life as a life-towards- a-project (Bauman: 1997: 48; Morley and Robins 1995: 203). The purpose of this chapter is to discuss these changing conditions – and the reac- tions they have provoked – in relation to the socio-political role of archaeological knowledge. Born and raised in the comfort of Western modernity, archaeology has internalized (and contributed to) the modernist faith in order and continuity. Its public legitimation is everywhere based on the taken-for-granted premise that the past constitutes a fundamental ground for collective identities in the present. In what way, then, do the new processes of dislocation, of hybridity and displacement, affect the socio-political agenda of archaeology, of museums and of present uses and consumptions of the past in general? Are the old slogans about identity and roots, which might give nations, ethnic groups and minorities ‘a history’, still an acceptable legitimation of the archaeological enterprise? Or is there a widening gap